Before dedicating a life-size statue of pioneer Hilda Anderson Erickson here June 7, President James E. Faust paid tribute to the great heritage she and other early Church members left behind.
President Faust, second counselor in the First Presidency, called the monument "a fitting way to memorialize a remarkable woman." Hilda crossed the plains at the age of 6 and later touched thousands of people through her work as a missionary, doctor and Relief Society president.The statue - sponsored by Settlement Canyon Chapter, Sons of Utah Pioneers in Tooele County, Utah, and designed by Peter M. Fillerup - portrays Hilda seated sidesaddle on her horse, "just as she would have looked as she rode on her many errands of mercy," said President Faust.
More than 300 people, including dozens of Hilda Erickson's direct descendants, gathered outside the Grantsville City Hall for the celebration. President Faust was accompanied by his wife, Ruth.
Before her death Jan. 1, 1968, Hilda Erickson, 108, had the distinction as "the last living pioneer to have crossed the plains."
As a young girl, Hilda traveled to the Salt Lake Valley with her mother and brothers, Claus, 12, and Carl, 10. They were part of the last wagon train to leave what was then a place called Wyoming, Neb., in 1866.
Quoting J. Reuben Clark Jr., President Faust talked about what it would have been like for Hilda and her family to travel west in the last wagon.
"Back in the last wagon," he said, "not always could they see the Brethren way out in front, and the blue heaven was often shut out from their sight by heavy, dense clouds of the dust of the earth."
Yet day after day, the Saints pressed forward, he said.
"They knew there was a God," President Faust continued, "for only He could have brought them triumphant, militant, through all the scorn, the ridicule, the slander, the tarrings and featherings, the whippings, the burnings, the plunderings, the murderings, the ravishings of wives and daughters, that had been their lot, the lot of their people since Joseph visioned the Father and the Son."
Hilda, her mother and brothers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley Oct. 22, 1866. After a short time in Mount Pleasant, Utah, they moved to Grantsville where Hilda's father - who had stayed behind in Sweden to earn money for his own passage - joined them.
There Hilda continued her life of pioneering. The mother of two was a licensed obstetrician, general practitioner, dentist, veterinarian, tailor, teacher, gardener and owner of two general stores. She served 25 years as Relief Society president and served a 12-year mission with her husband, John A. Erickson, to Ibapah, Utah, where they worked among the Indians.
President Faust said he felt some personal affinity for Hilda because his grandparents also settled in Tooele County.
"My grandfather James A. Faust, Sr., and his wife, Maud Wetzel Faust, operated a Church ranch in Ibapah for some years," he said. "There were so few settlers among the Indians there that I am satisfied my grandparents were well acquainted with this remarkable woman."
